UCRL-ID- 1261 10

Modular Nuclear Testing Concept

L. F. Wouters

DISCLAIMER

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor any of their empiuyees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsi- bility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. Refer- ence herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise docs not ncccssarily constitute or imply its endorsement, m o m - mendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof.

J A M 7 3 fW7

July 14,1964

This is an informal report intended ptimady for internd or limited external distribution. The opinions and conclusions stated are those of the author and may or may not be those of the Laboratory. Work performed under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Energy by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory under Contract W-7405-ENG-48.

Portions of this document may be illegible in electronic image products. Images are produced from the best available original document.

The continuing concern v i t h eff ic ient u t i l i ze t ion of manpover a t &E3

and the seemin61:r high cost of individual nuclear shots, together with the

recent evolution of the L l Z scope, generated some fresh thoughts concern- more ef f ic ien t procedures for tbe "average" test. Every time anyone looks at the problem, they tend t o analyze the existing conventional. approach and t r y t o find the one or two most expensive and "lossy"fact0rs i n the can of

worms- U s u a 3 l y t h i s turns out t o be a problem within the realm of special- ization of the particular analyst! the program tend t o look for, or wish for, or even "invent", 'biracles", To the extent t o W c h I can be objective, our present techniques s t r ike m e as being the sum (and possibly even the product?) of many s& contri- butions which have a l l been beaten down t o the same level of importance. Such a situation in any systemic problem is usually symptomatic of the need

People not so direct ly cancerned with

at least

My own personal pipe-line into t h e problem at first involved consider- a t ion of the electronic diaguostic aspect ( the specialist?), but it became quickly evident that the major issues were of a much different fbnctional, orgmizationaJ+ a~ad capital investment, character. (We ran into precisely t h e same situation in designing the readiness aircraft sysWns.)

Perhaps t h e most serious block t o effective thinking about the problem, m e certain t radt t ions left over from atmospheric 'bunker" days - In particular - certain basic plant limitations that exist today, because we

were i n i t r a l l y more-or-less forced t o u t i l i z e equipment and methods inherited from that time- With respect to t h e electronic diagnostics for ias;tance,

? t h e old design res t r ic t . ion that almost everything irteccied for bimker in-

stal lat ion, had. t o be in the form of "hand carry-in" m i t s : t u r n s out. to be a most si@.ificant limitation.

I\TOT-T q:>roa,ching t h e prob1.e~ fro:?: e f m c t i o n a l stanti,poj.nt: one of t h e

problems Vnat has cause? much concern in recen t hrist,oryr: and wl-iich many

of u.s are s t i l l unhappy about, i s t h e '>ortel-to-por-kII' h s i n e s s wit]:

respect t o tee-nicians asd engineers; r o u a l y I/& of a tmrking day i s lost

by the necessity of daily moving a substantial number or I.li@iLy trztinec?

men fro& Mercury t o the forward weds. should attempt t o use these people at a location which would significantly reduce such "in-house" travel time (and possibly even i n a location w h i c h

would impose much less personal sacr i f ice i n "getting t o work".).*

_. s This suggests tha t a 'hew approach"

The basic concept that I wish t o i n t r d u c e here, involves moving most of the ac t iv i t i e s carried out at the ground zero location a t least t o Mercury (and possibly even t o Las Vegas), This would involve the creation of a security campound with appropriate permanent buildings, tooling, test equipment, etc., etc. f o r assembfy and test- of diagnostic canisters, device canisters and prompt diagnostic trailers- EssentiaUy, I am pro- posing that a l l internal system installation, t es t ing and setting-up, be

ive

days the entire system be transported in suitable vehicles to t3e shaf t location, cables could be transported on specially desfgned trucks - which would eliminate the need f o r in-the-field t h i n g runs. t h e devic'e would be mated t o the syrjtem at a intermediate stop - say a new specialized working area along the highway near Bldg 10. It is even possLble that the FPFF dry-run could be closer t o D-day with such an arrangement

To be rea1.U radical, I think that even the down-hole and surface

As suggested by Jim C.,

*It is certainly t rue a$, seen from a '%imon Legree" viewpoinf;, those men are hired t o be at Mercury ate%@& o'clock, and how they get there and how .inefficien% the i r personal time u t i l h a t i b n may be, could be said to be none of our concern - But that consideration is taken involvesnents, as and effectiveness. (TO the

- $ & _ / 2- d d

-I-

-

t COL 64-7k

. . .~ . ... I.. . ,.>: :-

The Trailer Package

My original approach tc the problem resulted fro3 t h e realizztior! that if one cozlc! put four traces i r t o a~ 1,-12> one c m n u t eFg5t t races

into an "L-123 '' - and f7srthermoi-e, t h e L-1-23 c o u l d represezt essentially

a single chin i n a lioe dZqrm. The L-123 would be a nulti-irace unit

canable of recordicg t h e outnut of i?. s ing le de tec to r and incIu i2 .n~ a1.1 of

the creep and dot rossis, mzskers, t r i g g e r s , etc., nomally arsoc5etcd

writh one 6et.ector. This would be a b ig chassis, bxt t5nis is on?-? a problem if one insssts upon m e d i e v a l handling techniques. have t o design specific El23 units for various functions - for instance, there would have t o be an El23 model for photomultipliers, one f o r photo-

To be sure, ve w c u l d

diodes, and one for Compton diodes. There would need t o b e alnha-measuring versions, and also time-interval measuring uni ts (using phcbdiodes and Compton diode h p u t s with slower dot rossis, etc.) and cross- thing units. Each El23 unit vmld have a power input, a signal input, a31 X-unittrigger

input, a cross-timing output, and possibly a signal tap-aff t o permit

insertion of' isolated scopes and special timing and calibration pulses. (mybe also a "sync " input. )

My confidence in suggesting a scheme of t h i s sor t stems from tne point ew t ha and in I

timing l i n e diagrams i n the past yeas; one can f ind more-or-less average- designs from t7hich most - l ine diappms rezresent only small departures. To

be sure, there axe continuing arguments between the "lo~?-Rossi", and t h e *'high-Rossi", contenders, but when you look at the results, it real ly doesn't make that much difference. where experience has shown that f l e x i b i l i t y rea l ly doesn't gain much (l ike

8C$p of the cases) - s i m p l y on the grounds that t h i s may allow.considerable

I think one should impose inf lex ib i l i ty i f;.

economies, and permit more at tent ion and e f fo r t on other kinds of capabilities

and problems, if one uses a l i t t l e imagination. How soon could such a scheme be tried? If' the units have t o be designed

frm scratch, one w i l l obtain a l l kinds of estimates, from s i x months t o 18 months, which is like killing the idea. As Jim C. has also suggested, we c c u d generate some sort of isrmedtate prototype test by, i n effect, "welding"

-

. Sucha i - _.

f'act it w d d amount to just abaut one-standard rack per detector,

" . I - .- __ 4

COL 64-74

Assuning t1ia.i 1.7e zero-in on tkt b a s i c number of one rack per de tec tor ,

and thzk a l i n e dia- now cons i s t s of a s:?ecificetion of L-123 racks and

switch p o s i t i o a s ( t h z t ' s a concessioc! we now finally eoxe t o grips with %he asso-,bly, i r s t a l l a t i o n and serv ic ing problems. A t t h i s point. I l i ke t o t e l l the story cto2st c o l o r 737 sets.

pieces of electronics and they w e stili c o t 211 t h a t istp be des i red i n te-ms of reliability and lor,gevity, but just t h e same t h e indmtry and t r a d e

has q u i t e a l i ne of effective handling tools that permit t h e service man t o cope with Knis basically tractable device. For instance, i n servicing the units, they axe not placed on a service bench, but axe placed in a Gimble-moanted frame that rotationally permits convenient access t o any point on the chassis i n a three-dimensional sense. an engineering problem and should be treated as such.

These ZE r e l a t i v e l y big, c m b e r s m e

v

Handling i s essentially

So I have cone up with the following thought: the diagnostic trailer now becmes essentially a frame work for holding L-123 units. One side consists essent ia l ly of ve r t i ca l stanchions between each unit; the El23 uni t s are permanently attached t o cover plates %hat form that s ide when the ins-k,lJation is complete, They would be picked up at the servicing and ins ta l la t ion area by means of a suitably equipped ?fork truck",

inserted i n to the side of the trailer and bolted i n place. One end of

l a i d i n troughs above the scope un i t bays. (such as camera operation Lines) would be laid i n a false floor under- neath t h e scope units,

Power and other special runs

Such a design completely prohibits access t o the units and dictates that if the uni t fails i n a manner not amenable t o '!screw holes and knobs", one palls t he un i t and replaces it with a-sresh one frm Plercury. demands on r e l i a b i l i t y and s t sb i l l ty - but if we are going t o make any progress i n any direction that's a necessary upgrading anyway, in the

next f e w years. almost t r i v i a l cmpred t o present practice - it simply becomes a place

I rea l ize that such an arrangement makes fan tas t ic

- The question of access t o the f ront panel really becmes

to mount the cameras and take dry-run pictures.

... .. . . . . .. . . .... .

, . -!- i

. . .

The Canisters

?i%Kle f have no% giver! 8 s much considerztion as to how to handle the

diegxiostic and device c m i s t e r s , I ten2 to fee l that most of the vork that

is done in f o n w d ere3 shacks could j u s t 8s well be done back E t t Nercu-T. EesicaDy, these ideas are based on t h e concept that it is cheaner, more

efficient and better n r a c t i c e t o me eqii?ment i n larFe7 integral. packnses w i t h a minimurr ; number of men than t o a w e l o t s of small units, parts,

servicing equipzent a d Lots of m e 2 t o go with them.

Canister/cable mating i s a fa i r ly demanding activity in the forward area, since from these steps, basically arise the need for the various shacks - e.s well as for much conswgtion of working time by many hmds and

hezds, m o s t of whom are sikn6ing t?.rom& most of the t h e , The rea l ly sensi- tive items are those that can potentially cause destruction and casualties - The Drimary and the gas bottles. So I suggest that, for most shots, these units be installed through access ports at the '%lag 10" stop,

parational dry-run purposes, one uses dummy primaries, having identical e lectr ical characteristics, and inert gas bottles (as at present). question of moving a completely assenbled down-hole sy&em, with five

device, across Yucca fat i s n * t so bad - one does t h i s at 2 A.M. after

For pre-

(The

devices over OUT heads al l the time.')

It would certainly be a%rkwzrd t o transport the system in its normal ver t ica l position. So a special hzndling tmck, similar to MRBM trans-

porters would need t o be devised - And the weapons people will simply have t o supply devices that c i ~ n be rotated 9" without f a l l i n g apart!

m q o c

lA. J. E. Carothers 2 A . J. N. Shearer 3. File &A. File

Series B: 7/31/64 3B A. Goeckermam ZB A, Hyne . 3B V. Denton